It’s an exciting week here at WMG! We’ve published our first new novel of the year, and I have to tell you, it’s a compelling way to kick things off.

This project was an interesting one for several reasons, not the least of which was the marketing challenge this book presented. Not because it will be hard to sell (it won’t—it’s topical, well written and gut-wrenching exactly where it should be), but because of the story arc itself and some of the current events making us all take a long, hard look at where we stand on gun laws.

You see Bleed Through, by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, follows the main characters through the aftermath of a school shooting.

Here’s the premise:

Former journalist turned journalism teacher Larissa Johanssen moved back to her hometown to escape the violence she once covered on a national stage. Until that violence strikes her high school, her students. Now, she must help her students deal with the type of coverage that drove her to the breaking point. And she must revisit parts of her past she thought long buried—and separate truth from fiction to finally begin to heal.

As you can glean from the back cover copy, it’s a helluva story. But every time we were ready to launch it, another school shooting would happen, making us reticent to seem like we were trying to capitalize on tragedy. Kris discussed this more in-depth in her recent blog post.

So, together with the author, we decided on a soft launch. We’ve made it available for sale in electronic and trade paper formats on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, CreateSpace, Kobo, Apple, Sony, and Smashwords and are allowing word-of-mouth to do the rest.

So, please consider giving it a read. And if you find it as compelling as we do, spread the word. Talk about it, Pin it, Tweet it, Share it, what have you. We hope you’ll want to be part of the conversation.

Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer.